Definition of Obsequious

obsequious (adjective) - attentive in an ingratiating or servile manner

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How can obsequious be used in a sentence?

  1. Him, smiling obsequious glad, an empty glass in hand.

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  2. You may depart for the pasture, my dear obsequious ones.

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  3. You're as slavishly obsequious a servant as anyone could ask for.

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  4. The Soltenite's obsequious affectations were repugnant to the Springer.

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  5. I think he meant to be polite but it struck me as incredibly obsequious.

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  6. He enlisted to counter the stereotype of the "meek, obsequious, bland Asian."

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  7. He thinks that was an obsequious behavior and it makes us look bad in the world.

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  8. When the host is introducing you, you should nod and smile in obsequious agreement.

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  9. And it plays into the image of Obama being overly obsequious during his overseas trips.

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  10. Only one other table was occupied, by several men, and one obsequious waiter hovered nearby.

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  11. An obsequious Deng grovels to Mao after the death of a second designated successor, Lin Biao.

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  12. BP at first sounded arrogant and now is so obsequious it won't even stand up for its legal rights.

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  13. Prison taught him the false smile, the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning greased obsequious leer.

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  14. And there was Obama bowing and being polite and overly-respectful (obsequious, even) to various world leaders.

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  15. Eventually, the Log Cabins realized that obsequious behavior wasn't going to get them anywhere and they became more aggressive.

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  16. In an obsequious tone of voice the commander of the freighter asked: "Gentlemen, am I permitted to put in a call to Patriarch Cokaze?"

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  17. Mr. Boede is distributing leaflets urging Potsdam's "subjects" to put on their finery, paint obsequious banners, and practice their bows.

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  18. One strapping Korean, all in pale-tinted silks of various colours, was surrounded by half a dozen obsequious attendants, also clad in silk.

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  19. Senators saw it as their job to assert interest in some matter but to fade away, sometimes with obsequious smiles, when they got nothing in response.

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  20. That kind of obsequious attitude plus Gordon Brown's 'light touch regulation' were taken by the 'spiv' element in the City as the signal that anything goes.

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  21. Take a look at Maria Bartiromo's obsequious July 22 interview with BB&T CEO Kelly King (who personally took home over $5 million last year, with the economy in the doldrums).

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  22. OK: we're all familiar at this point with the sickeningly prissy, obsequious, condescending tone of the now-infamous column by the Toronto Star's "public editor," Kathy English.

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  23. Somehow I have a feeling that all these obsequious calls and e-mails came to an abrupt end once we found out what was really going on, but with these guys, you're never quite sure.

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  24. He probably was being obsequious and simply kissing-up to his captors/torturers in an effort to show them that he was fully compliant and there was no need to nearly drown him again!

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  25. Greenberg should be put under the harsh spotlight of public scrutiny too, instead of being allowed to shoot his mouth off on CNBC or Bloomberg, where his inquisitors are invariably obsequious.

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  26. Critics and fans alike have speculated that Michael will ride off into the sunset with Holly Flax Amy Ryan, who has come as close to being a soulmate for the obsequious boss as anyone could be.

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  27. Among others we find a contemporary Tiziano Vecelli, who is a lawyer of note concerned in the administration of Cadore, keeping up a kind of obsequious friendship with his famous cousin at Venice.

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  28. Callisthenes undoubtedly harbored much ill will toward the royal house of Macedonia for obliterating his hometown, but he obliged Alexander with obsequious propaganda until the king had him executed.

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  29. Equally uneven is the tale of Lenny's obsequious, obsessive feelings for pretty, powerful Eunice, told in the first person alongside Lenny's intermittent (and much too similar-sounding) diary entries.

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  30. That means the faith community in its many varied forms needs to "get saved," saved and sanctified from serving as obsequious chaplains to the old, polarized, paralyzed, incompetent politics of the old dirty economy.

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  31. Wilfred, the nurse - and I don't like him, he's too obsequious - he sleeps on our top floor here in those old attics, and Ivan has had an intercom installed so that he can call him if he has chest pains in the night. '

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  32. In addition, there's a new book about Shyamalan, The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale and the making of this film, which is apparently an exercise in obsequious flattery.

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  33. Klein may have his flaws and vanities, a plethora of less than charming polemical traits, but Kirchick -- Kirchick is the Eddie Haskell of neoconservatives, a calculating little suck-up whose obsequious pieties drip like melted plastic.

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  34. Wolf Blitzer's secret thoughts about politicians are exactly as obsequious and bland as you think they are: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul and Rick Perry could have taken the easy path and relaxed and enjoyed life.

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  35. The waiters at the club were all white-jacketed middle-aged black men who could not be called obsequious but belonged culturally to another generation, one that knew how to be selectively deaf and to pretend that the clientele they served held them in high regard.

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  36. I try to tread a not-middle line between following the pure dictates of cold logic which would involve going to the gym as well as not being in any political party and the kind of obsequious loyalty and jam-tomorrow logic you see in members of the other two parties.

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  37. He was only five feet - six inches tall and occasionally ballooned up to 185 pounds, but the pudgy, moon-faced chemist from South Philadelphia with the obsequious manner and apolitical demeanor was one of the Soviet Union's most trusted and highly regarded secret agents.

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  38. After the kind of obsequious, sycophantic verbal fellatio that has been given some of the other candidates, who have said far stupider things, it would be more helpful to wipe the slate clean and just have a new set of interviewers, if we want to seriously rate political candidates.

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  39. (Despite claims to the contrary, to a devoted reader it becomes laughably improbable that this great story was authored by a psychic primate, like ourselves only bigger and endowed with superpowers, who cares about whether small primates cover their heads or bow in obsequious praise.)

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  40. Despite all of the above, I stayed until Satan's painfully obsequious, verbally offensive, imperialistic attitude, combined with the sad, defeated, uncomfortable acceptance of his off-putting behavior by everybody else employed here - not to mention the necessity of plastic drop cloths - made me feel like I couldn't breathe.

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  41. Under the duly, officially, formally constituted German "law" of the time -- as interpreted and applied by obsequious jurists in the mold of Judge Brown and her fellow war power expander, Judge Brett Kavanaugh -- there was little or nothing that was "illegal" in the vast catalogue of Nazi wartime atrocities, including the Holocaust itself.

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Tips for Using obsequious in a Sentence

You may have an easier time writing sentences with obsequious if you know what words are likely to come before or after it, or simply what words are often found in the same sentence.

Frequent Predecessors

Words that often come before obsequious in sentences. For example: "the obsequious" or "an obsequious"

  • the
  • an
  • and
  • most
  • of
  • his
  • more
  • with
  • be
  • so

Frequent Successors

Words that often come after obsequious in sentences. For example: "obsequious to" or "obsequious and"

  • to
  • and
  • .
  • in
  • as
  • manner
  • servants
  • servant
  • smile
  • courtiers

Associated Words

Words that aren't necessarily predecessors or successors, but are often found in the same sentence.

  • assistant
  • towards
  • policy
  • lord
  • too
  • character
  • himself

Alternate Definitions

  • obsequious (adjective) - promptly obedient, or submissive, to the will of another; compliant; yielding to the desires of another; devoted
  • obsequious (adjective) - servilely or meanly attentive; compliant to excess; cringing; fawning
  • obsequious (adjective) - of or pertaining to obsequies; funereal
A sentence using obsequious